Why I Should Move To D.C. Immediately
Next to me sits an older, large, pear-shaped woman Joan. She has at least one grown child, and is single "by choice" she told me today. Joan was talking to the H.R. woman casually, and they were brainstorming baby names for the H.R. woman. Who is not pregnant. And, in my opinion, they were picking horribly overused names and gushing over them as if they were discovering them for the first time.
Anyway, at one point they looked over at me and said something about how silly that is, what with nobody even trying to get pregnant. I laughed and told them despite not having a boyfriend I've already planned my wedding.
Later Joan turned to me, and told me that if I ever wanted to get married, the first step would be moving out of San Francisco. Why? Because of "the gays." Apparently, they're everywhere here. Joan's daughter met the guy she married when she lived in D.C. The fact that the daughter met him on Match.com didn't sink in with Joan.
I am to move to D.C. immediately. Because D.C. is the center of everything. The national headquarters of numerous companies are there. A lot of "exciting things" that Joan didn't specify, happen in D.C. There are so many colleges there, and very wholesome young men.
Peoples? I have zero interest in moving to D.C. I'm not that interested in politics. And although I am attracted to the preppy sort you can find in D.C., there are some preppies here in S.F. And, I'm not married to the preppy type either. I could totally marry a guy who had a tattoo. Not on his face or anything, but a half-sleeve or something would be fine.
Joan would not shut the fuck up about how important it was for me to move. It seemed, from listening to Joan, that my most important goal in life should be to find a husband. Immediately. By packing up and moving to D.C.
What I thought was interesting was that just yesterday, Joan was telling me all about her sister, who also lives in the area, is also a legal secretary, and happens to be looking for a job. Surely she couldn't really have thought she'd talk me into moving that quickly so as to get her sister into my job.
The other weird thing about Joan was that she tried to tell me, presenting it as just trying to be helpful of course, that my outfit today was inappropriate. I was wearing cordoroy gray pants, a green sweater, and black loafers. Joan kept telling me that cordoroy pants were not allowed at this firm. She even went to the extreme of looking up the dress code, where all she found was that demin of any kind is unacceptable, which I knew.
Joan then tried to tell me that the pants I was wearing could be considered cordoroy jeans, and thus, unacceptable. Okay, let's break it down for the slow people. Isn't the definition of jeans that they're made out of denim? Denim is a material. Isn't cordoroy a material? A different material than denim? Thus, isn't cordoroy NOT denim and thus not banned based on the dress code prohibiting jeans?
Yeah. So Joan is weird. And I'm not moving to D.C.
Anyway, at one point they looked over at me and said something about how silly that is, what with nobody even trying to get pregnant. I laughed and told them despite not having a boyfriend I've already planned my wedding.
Later Joan turned to me, and told me that if I ever wanted to get married, the first step would be moving out of San Francisco. Why? Because of "the gays." Apparently, they're everywhere here. Joan's daughter met the guy she married when she lived in D.C. The fact that the daughter met him on Match.com didn't sink in with Joan.
I am to move to D.C. immediately. Because D.C. is the center of everything. The national headquarters of numerous companies are there. A lot of "exciting things" that Joan didn't specify, happen in D.C. There are so many colleges there, and very wholesome young men.
Peoples? I have zero interest in moving to D.C. I'm not that interested in politics. And although I am attracted to the preppy sort you can find in D.C., there are some preppies here in S.F. And, I'm not married to the preppy type either. I could totally marry a guy who had a tattoo. Not on his face or anything, but a half-sleeve or something would be fine.
Joan would not shut the fuck up about how important it was for me to move. It seemed, from listening to Joan, that my most important goal in life should be to find a husband. Immediately. By packing up and moving to D.C.
What I thought was interesting was that just yesterday, Joan was telling me all about her sister, who also lives in the area, is also a legal secretary, and happens to be looking for a job. Surely she couldn't really have thought she'd talk me into moving that quickly so as to get her sister into my job.
The other weird thing about Joan was that she tried to tell me, presenting it as just trying to be helpful of course, that my outfit today was inappropriate. I was wearing cordoroy gray pants, a green sweater, and black loafers. Joan kept telling me that cordoroy pants were not allowed at this firm. She even went to the extreme of looking up the dress code, where all she found was that demin of any kind is unacceptable, which I knew.
Joan then tried to tell me that the pants I was wearing could be considered cordoroy jeans, and thus, unacceptable. Okay, let's break it down for the slow people. Isn't the definition of jeans that they're made out of denim? Denim is a material. Isn't cordoroy a material? A different material than denim? Thus, isn't cordoroy NOT denim and thus not banned based on the dress code prohibiting jeans?
Yeah. So Joan is weird. And I'm not moving to D.C.
posted by Green at 11/14/2007 09:45:00 PM
3 Comments:
Please tell Joan that I live in Florida and had to import my husband from San Francisco, so there are definitely straight guys there who want to get married. In fact, unless I went to the Castro, I never saw many gay guys in San Francisco and my husband has plenty of straight friends.
I bet the names were Madison, Olivia, Isabella, Taylor, Bailey and Sophia.
At least she said it to your face. The first time I learned that someone thought my outfit was inappropriate for the office was when I returned from the ladies’ room too quietly and heard 3 of the other 8 people in the office in the cubicle next to mine laughing about what a tacky white trash idiot I was. It was definitely an indicator of how I’d be treated there for the next couple years.
I don’t think you violated the dress code. I’ve never heard of “corduroy jeans.”
There are two possible reasons for Joan’s comment.
(1) There is an unspoken code, like in high school where you can buy $100 Nikes and be labeled a loser, then buy $100 Adidas and be considered cool. Some bosses will have a talk with employees whose clothing is too wrinkled while others just care that clients can’t see your tattoo.
(2) She is a digger who likes to undermine a person’s confidence by picking at and magnifying little things that others probably wouldn’t notice or care about, always in the guise of a concerned friend. This is supported by her focus on your marital status.
Get more opinions from other women in the office or just watch closely how fussy they are about their appearance to get a better idea of the culture there.
I’m surprised she thinks DC is a good place to find a mate. I always had the opposite opinion. Doesn’t it have a higher concentration of Type-A workaholics? That would make it harder to connect with someone.
We-ell...here's the thing. Jeans can actually be made of any kind of material, though they are usually denim or something that looks like denim. They are a style of pant, and there is such a thing as corduroy jeans. If your corduroy pants are cut like or styled like jeans (as opposed to slacks), then probably they should not be worn to work in this particular office, just to be on the safe side.
Which is not to say that Joan isn't totally annoying!
Post a Comment
<< Home